It is frequently desirable to temporarily hang protective curtains inside buildings in many different instances, such as during interior construction, remodeling, and painting. At the present time, there is no satisfactory way to accomplish supporting protective curtains in this manner. This is largely due to the fact that these buildings are usually devoid of any adequate supporting structures for the curtains. A possible method for suspending articles in this situation, incorporates utilizing the horizontal beams which support acoustical ceiling tiles.
There have been attempts in the prior art to produce devices that will suspend various articles from ceiling support beams. . These include U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,550 (DeWitt et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,611 (Hoop), both of which disclose suspended hooks that will attach to ceiling support beams and facilitate the hanging of objects from their lower hook portions. These devices are ineffective however, in providing a means for supporting a temporary protective curtain from a ceiling structural member, in that a hook will not efficiently anchor to the sheet configuration of a curtain.
Although some type of jerryrigging might possibly be conceived to hang a curtain from a hook, this would not only be impractical, but would also likely produce tearing of the curtain and/or excessive gapping between the curtain and the ceiling. Thus, there is a continuing need for a simplified device that will effectively suspend a temporary curtain from a support structure, and is also relatively easy to install and operate.